Southwest

From its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, the Colorado River grows from a cold alpine trout stream into an iconic Western waterway, slicing through gorges and meandering through ranchlands on its 1,450-mile source-to-sea journey.

In fact, most of what you know about the American Southwest is shaped by this river, which waters vast farmlands, sustains wildlife and fish, and powers a $1.4 trillion economy. More than 37 million people in seven states and two countries get their water from the Colorado River.

But the river is stretched to its limit. Prolonged drought due to climate change and increasing demand for water threaten economies, degrade our environment, challenge our country’s food production, and limit recreation. The Colorado already dries up before it reaches the Gulf of California. Doing nothing will put additional vulnerable ecosystems at risk and trigger water shortages in some of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, including Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego. 

Ultimately, we need to learn to live with less water. American Rivers has played a critical role in efforts to protect Southwestern rivers and secure the region’s water future. We are a voice for the Colorado River in the media and with elected decision-makers, and we have developed a framework for collaboration that will become even more urgent as the impacts of climate change take hold. 

Key Issues 

River protection: We are working with local partners and conservation groups to permanently protect rivers under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, including the Gila River in New Mexico and Deep Creek in Colorado. [link to more SW River Protection content from existing page] 

Restore rivers and ranches: Our work with ranchers in the headwaters of the Colorado River addresses irrigation issues while restoring river habitat for fish and aquatic life. Our success in improving river function and soil health proves that productive ranches and healthy rivers can thrive together. 

Water security: American Rivers is an important partner, collaborating with cities’ water departments and local groups on innovative ways to capture and reuse municipal water, and restore local creeks to keep the ecosystem healthy. 

Funding the Colorado Water Plan: Colorado has an essential roadmap for managing and improving the state’s treasured rivers, lakes, and streams — and establishing a path toward water security. American Rivers and coalition partners advocate for long-term funding solutions to fully implement the Colorado Water Plan 

Track record of success 

Protecting our last wild places: We work with local partners and conservation allies to ensure that harmful development doesn’t endanger rivers or water. Wild streams in Colorado’s iconic Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness will stay dam-free forever after we stopped the development of two new dams, and we helped put an end to plans to build a tram in the Grand Canyon.

Planning for a future with less water: American Rivers helps cities like Tucson find ways to manage water with greater flexibility and efficiency so that people and habitats will have the water they need for the future. We played a key role in developing a Drought Contingency Plan that will help avert an immediate water crisis across the Southwest. 

Award-winning films tell the story of a river: Our films shine a national spotlight on critical river-related issues. We have told stories in English and Spanish about the deep connections migrant farm workers in Arizona have to the Colorado River, how ranchers in Colorado are doing more with less water, and the links between farming and water in the Sonoran Desert. 

Collaborating with stakeholders: Our success is rooted in pragmatism. We partner with a coalition of community leaders, environmental and agricultural leaders, recreation groups, Native American tribes, and city decision-makers to share ideas and develop common-sense solutions. Together, we find win-win solutions that are best for the river and the Southwest. 

Southeast

Warmth, rain, and eons of opportunities for migration have yielded America’s most diverse riverfront flora and fish life. Brilliant darters of upland streams are a living museum of adaptations with colors rivaling fishes at tropical reefs. Fishing for bass, bream, and catfish is a preferred pastime here, and for the highly adventurous, alluring whitewater plunges from the upper reaches of the Chattooga and Nantahala, while Arkansas boasts the Buffalo River of canoeing fame. 

Virtually all of the region’s communities are within a mile of a river or stream, and millions depend on rivers for drinking water. Rivers are the lifelines of the region’s major cities including Atlanta, Charleston, Greenville, Raleigh, Asheville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. With this desirable region experiencing a population boom, it is more important than ever to protect and restore the region’s rivers and the magic they hold. 

Key Issues 

Advocating for Rivers: Few rivers in the Southeast have escaped harm from population growth, poor planning, and increasing floods and droughts. Many communities face recurring water shortages — once unimaginable in this historically wet region — while increasing demand strains aging water systems. Unchecked growth paves over living landscapes, degrading wetlands and turning streams into lifeless ditches, increasing flood risk in vulnerable communities. Polluted runoff increases erosion and contamination, threatening public health. Thousands of harmful dams, many no longer in use, clog the region’s rivers, harming aquatic life, impairing clean water, and creating safety hazards for downstream communities. Together, these threats are eroding the health and vitality of rivers and holding communities back from reaching their full potential. 

Protecting Rivers: American Rivers works across a broad range of programs to protect and improve the health of the region’s rivers. Our staff leverages partnerships across the region, tailoring our efforts to meet the challenges facing specific rivers and watersheds. We are protecting and restoring the rivers of the Southeast to guarantee they are valuable assets continuing to provide unique economic, recreational, and ecological benefits. 

Track record of success 

Greening the world’s busiest airport: American Rivers and Hartsfield- Jackson Atlanta International Airport are partnering on projects to manage stormwater using green infrastructure that helps keep the headwaters of the Flint River healthy. 

Convinced the city of Raleigh not to dam the Neuse River: Our advocacy secured a new plan to supply water without building a single new dam or harming the health of the Neuse. American Rivers has played an important role in pushing for solutions to meet the area’s water needs, including using water more efficiently. 

Improved the health of rivers impacted by hydro: By ensuring hydro facilities operate more efficiently, we increased ecosystem and recreation flows on over 400 miles of river and 150,000 floodplain acres. 

Expanded the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge: We successfully advocated to grow the refuge by 6,600 acres to protect delicate wildlife habitats impacted by sea level rise, lower flood risk to nearby communities, and provide recreation opportunities. 

Pacific Northwest

Recreation, agriculture, energy production, and industry all rely on rivers. Rivers have significant cultural value for the region’s Tribal Nations, who continue to steward their health. 

The Pacific Northwest is a leader in innovative water and river management. The region is home to innovative green infrastructure efforts to protect clean water, a groundbreaking water supply and river restoration agreement on the Yakima River that is a model for other western river basins, and the world’s biggest dam removal effort. 

Key Issues 

For over 20 years, American Rivers has been the lead voice for river conservation in the Pacific Northwest. We are known for our advocacy on issues ranging from dam removal to water supply to Wild and Scenic River protection. 

Today, we are working closely with local, state, and federal leaders to reshape the way water is managed, ensuring that rivers remain healthy while meeting the needs of the region’s communities. As climate change shrinks mountain snowpack and causes more intense floods and droughts, our work to protect the Northwest’s rivers and freshwater is more important than ever. 

Solutions for the Snake River: restore native salmon runs, honor Native American treaty rights, and catalyze clean energy and infrastructure investments. 

Restore rivers by removing dams: The fastest way to restore a river is by removing a dam. We are working with partners to remove outdated, unsafe, and harmful dams across the region.  

Wild and Scenic designations: permanently protect healthy rivers that provide significant clean water, habitat, and cultural benefits. 
 

Track record of success 

For nearly 30 years, American Rivers has been the leading voice for river conservation in the Pacific Northwest. We are known for our advocacy on issues ranging from dam removal to water supply to Wild and Scenic River protection. Respected for our pragmatism and willingness to collaborate with diverse stakeholders, we have a long track record of negotiating successful agreements around complex water and dam issues. 

Elwha River: provided advocacy and fundraising support for a successful effort to remove two massive dams so that native salmon could once again reach their spawning grounds. 

Yakima River Basin Integrated Plan: established a collaborative, long- term plan to address climate change, water supply, river restoration, and land management for farms, fish, and forests. 

Wild river protections: won Wild and Scenic safeguards for priceless streams in Oregon and Washington. 

Northern Rockies

The headwaters of these pristine rivers originate in three sprawling wilderness complexes – the Crown of the Continent along the US-Canadian border; the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where the Missouri, Snake, and Green rivers are born; and the Salmon-Selway Ecosystem in central Idaho, where endangered salmon and steelhead still migrate 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to spawn.

The rivers of the Northern Rockies generate billions of dollars annually from outdoor recreation, hydroelectric production, irrigated agriculture, and water for industrial uses. Overshadowing all of these values are the ecosystem services these rivers provide such as clean drinking water for people, critical habitat for fish and wildlife, and natural flood control in the form of intact wetlands and floodplains.

Key Issues

Track Record of Success

Since we opened our Northern Rockies office in 2009, we have won long-term and permanent protections for hundreds of rivers and streams totaling more than 2,000 river miles. Over that time, we have protected a total of 14 new Wild and Scenic rivers totaling 435 river miles and gained long-term administrative protections for 1,375 river miles by engaging in land management plan revisions on U.S. Forest Service lands. Following are some of our biggest conservation victories over the past decade:

• Gained Wild and Scenic designation for 13 rivers, 415 river miles and 132,800 acres of riverside lands in the Snake River Headwaters in northwest Wyoming (2009)
• Killed proposed hydropower projects on East Rosebud Creek and the upper Madison River in Montana (2013)
• Permanently banned all new mining and energy development in the transboundary North Fork Flathead River watershed in Montana and British Columbia through passage of the North Fork Watershed Protection Act (2014)
• Permanently protected the upper Hoback River in northwest Wyoming from industrial-scale oil and gas drilling in its headwaters (2014)
• Thwarted 27 proposed dams in the Henry’s Fork watershed in eastern Idaho, including a proposal to rebuild the Teton Dam on the Teton River (2014)
• Won long-term administrative protections for 20 rivers, 286 river miles, and 91,520 acres of riverside lands on the Shoshone National Forest in northwest Wyoming (2015)
• Won long-term administrative protections for 14 rivers,150 river miles, and 48,000 acres of riverside lands on the Kootenai National Forest in northwest Montana (2015)
• Stopped two proposed dams on the Upper Green River in Wyoming by getting them stricken from the state’s new water plan (2015)
• Gained Wild and Scenic designation for 20 miles of East Rosebud Creek, marking Montana’s first new Wild and Scenic designation in more than four decades (2018)
• Won long-term administrative protections for 24 rivers, 284 river miles, and 90,880 acres of riverside lands in the Flathead National Forest in northwest Montana (2018)
• Won long-term administrative protections for 45 rivers, 361 river miles, and 115,520 acres of riverside lands in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest in west central Montana (2021)
• Won long-term administrative protections for 31 rivers, 294 river miles, and 94,080 acres of riverside lands in the Custer Gallatin National Forest in southwest Montana (2022)
• Won a lawsuit to stop the proposed Black Butte Copper Mine from being built in the headwaters of Montana’s Smith River (2022)

Northeast

The economy depends on rivers for everything from watering crops to moving goods to sustaining commercial fisheries.  

And yet our rivers have never been at greater risk due to climate change and aging infrastructure. We are already feeling the impacts of rising temperatures on the Northeast’s ecosystems, with warmer winters and increasingly severe storms and floods. Severe fragmentation by dams worsens climate change impacts on fish species, which are already in precipitous decline. In addition, drinking water infrastructure throughout the Northeast will crumble without immediate action. 

Key Issues 

Across the Northeast, American Rivers is working to: 

Restore rivers: Most of the 20,000 dams that fragment rivers of New England and New York no longer serve their original purpose. Many are at risk of failure with catastrophic results. Removing harmful dams is the fastest way to improve river habitat, water quality, recreational opportunities, and community safety.  

Improve river health as hydropower dams are relicensed: Hydropower dams radically alter streamflow, decimate fish populations, impair water quality, and degrade wildlife habitat. The federal process to renew operating licenses for hydropower dams is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reverse some of this damage. We will leverage relicensing to allow for low-carbon energy and healthy rivers.  

Help communities to adapt to the threats of climate change: Flooding is the most frequent severe weather threat and the costliest natural disaster facing the nation. Reconnecting floodplains to rivers helps rebuild natural infrastructure to store and absorb floodwaters, provide habitat, filter pollutants, and recharge groundwater supplies.  

Invest in clean water infrastructure to reduce pollution: With more support, we can work to ensure over $5 billion of federal funding will go where it is needed most and result in projects that keep polluted stormwater and sewage out of our rivers and communities.  

Build powerful relationships: The problems facing rivers and their communities are large and can’t be fixed without strong collaboration and a partner-based approach. American Rivers seeks to build strong, collaborative relationships with other conservation groups and community-based organizations. 

TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS 

Restoring Rivers: American Rivers was instrumental in the Edwards Dam removal on Maine’s Kennebec River in 1999 — the project that sparked a movement for free-flowing rivers in the U.S. and around the world. The removal was significant because it was the first time the federal government ordered a dam removed because the environmental costs outweighed the small amount of power generated by the dam. The success on the Kennebec shows that dam removal works: tens of millions of alewives, blueback herring, striped bass, shad, and other sea-run fish now travel up the Kennebec River, the biggest migration on the eastern seaboard. Abundant osprey, bald eagles, sturgeon and other wildlife have also returned. Twenty years later over 271 dams have been removed across New England by American Rivers and our partners, including 45 dam removals in Maine. 

Investing in Clean Water: American Rivers worked extensively with groups in New England to advocate for stronger national stormwater pollution protections – resulting in a national-regional collaboration that resulted in new ideas applicable both to New England and other parts of the U.S. The local expertise and ideas developed by New England organizations became case studies that American Rivers was able to utilize in federal advocacy efforts with the Environmental Protection Agency as well as in other states, resulting in improvements in stormwater policy in places like California and the Mid-Atlantic. 

Midwest

The region supplies 92 percent of the nation’s farm exports and produces $54 billion worth of agricultural products annually. Paddling, bird-watching, fishing, and other eco-tourism draw visitors from near and far to support 143,000 jobs and generate $6.6 billion in annual revenue. 

This region’s streams deserve a renewed commitment from all who realize that the future of this region – stressed by increasingly severe floods and drought – depends on healthy rivers. 

Key Issues 

Restoring Rivers: For decades American Rivers has played a lead role in advocating for improved river, dam, and flood management in the region. We led a multi-year fight to reform federal dam operations on the Missouri River to restore habitat for endangered fish and wildlife and to improve river recreation opportunities. Along the Mississippi River and elsewhere we have battled costly, harmful, and short-sighted U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects, and we have pushed for river restoration and smarter use of taxpayer dollars. 

Track Record of Success

River Protection: Today, American Rivers leads the Nicollet Island Coalition, which works to protect and restore the Upper Mississippi River by advocating for reforms to the navigation system. And all along the Mississippi River, we are working to improve flood protection policies to protect people and property and safeguard the health of the region’s rivers. 

Mid-Atlantic

More than 46 million people in the Mid-Atlantic get their drinking water from rivers. Agriculture and manufacturing — two of the biggest sectors of the economy — depend on rivers for everything, from watering crops to moving goods.  

And yet the rivers and wildlife of this region are at risk due to climate change, urbanization, and pollution. Extreme precipitation overwhelms local sewers causing sewage and polluted stormwater to flood rivers, which impacts community health and safety. In many urbanized areas, rivers and streams are further stressed by water infrastructure that is outdated and inadequate in the face of climate change, growing economic disparity, and sprawling urban development. The Mid-Atlantic faces a budget shortfall of $44 billion to repair sewage infrastructure, and an additional $3 billion to address stormwater pollution in Maryland alone.  

Our mission to protect and restore rivers and conserve clean water for people and nature has never been more vital to the Mid- Atlantic region. 

Key Issues

Across the Mid-Atlantic, American Rivers is working to:

Restore rivers: We will re-ignite rivers’ natural benefits by removing dams to increase fish and wildlife access to habitat, eliminating safety hazards for local communities, and ensuring more thriving free-flowing rivers that can provide refuge from a changing climate. 

Help communities adapt to the threats of climate change: Build more resilient communities by protecting river corridors and reconnecting floodplains to give rivers room to flood safely, rebuild natural infrastructure, provide habitat, absorb floodwaters, filter pollutants, and recharge groundwater supplies. Increase the use of and funding for climate-resilient water infrastructure in cities to help mitigate the impacts of climate-induced flooding and drought.  

Reconnect people with rivers: Reconnect, reveal, and restore rivers in cities to create healthy rivers with clean water by advocating for innovative approaches to managing urban water, such as green infrastructure and authentic engagement of communities most impacted by urban flooding, polluted water, and other challenges.  

Build authentic relationships: The problems facing rivers and their communities can only be fixed with strong collaboration and a partner-based approach. American Rivers seeks to build strong, authentic relationships with community-based organizations to better understand their challenges, and support, and learn from their work to address river and water-quality challenges. 

TRACK RECORD OF SUCCESS 

Restoring rivers: American Rivers’ staff have removed more than 166 dams and secured more than $30 million in government funding to support states and communities to make rivers safer places to recreate. We brought together federal and state agencies, municipalities, local organizations, community leaders, and others to remove Bloede Dam, which had played a direct role in the deaths of at least nine people on Maryland’s Patapsco River. It is now safer for tens of thousands of people to enjoy the Patapsco River, American eel have experienced a more than 1,200 percent surge in numbers, and alewife has been seen above the dam site for the first time in more than 100 years.  

Creating climate-resilient communities: American Rivers has partnered extensively with organizations and cities throughout the Mid-Atlantic to fund and build natural pollution-control projects. We worked extensively with the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to launch its first Green Infrastructure Plan and identify that it could save more than $120 million in capital costs. Projects installed since the launch of the plan are keeping more than 56 million gallons of polluted stormwater per year from entering local rivers. This work continues alongside partners like Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. 

Investing in clean water: American Rivers strongly advocated for funding in the federal bipartisan infrastructure law that passed in 2021. The law will distribute close to $50 billion in water-infrastructure funding over the next five years, including $800 million for dam removal. In 2022 alone, $443 million will be distributed to the Mid-Atlantic for clean water infrastructure, with over $42 million targeted toward projects such as green roofs, stream buffers, and energy efficiency measures at wastewater treatment plants.  

Preventing flood damage: We align diverse partners to work toward outcomes that support nature-based solutions and seek racial and economic justice in floodplain management. We also foster the Natural Floodplain Functions Alliance, helping 2,200 practitioners across the nation protect and restore natural floodplains. 

Great Lakes

The effort to save America’s best free-flowing streams had some of its earliest beginnings in this region — Michigan’s Au Sable is a beloved Wild and Scenic River.  

But many of the rivers of the Great Lakes basin have been heavily impacted by industry, invasive species, and a changing climate. Antiquated sewer systems are unable to withstand more frequent and intense storms causing combined sewer overflows – disproportionately impacting communities of color. Asian carp and other invasive species pose a significant threat to native fish. Polluted runoff from both rural and urban lands increases erosion and puts public health at risk by contaminating drinking water supplies. 

With climate change bringing more frequent and intense floods and adding new challenges for clean water, our work to protect the region’s rivers is more important than ever. 

Key Issues 

Clean water:  Clean water is essential for health, and rivers provide the water our communities need. We’re working to ensure all people have access to clean water. And, we are working to ensure that the hundreds of millions of dollars available from the federal infrastructure legislation flows where it’s most needed — to improve climate resiliency, safety, and health. 

Track record of success 

Hydropower: Our effort to reform the operations of hydropower dams has resulted in hundreds of miles of restored rivers such as Michigan’s Muskegon and Manistee. 

Clean Water: Our report Catching the Rain identified and promoted best practices for protecting clean water.   

Projects: We have leveraged our research into community-based demonstration projects in Toledo, Grand Rapids, and Milwaukee.  

California

  
Local communities depend on river habitats as well, and our work expands local access to natural spaces whether in the urban or rural context, the valleys or mountains. California is experiencing the severe impacts of climate change, manifesting in years-long drought, intensified floods and wildfires, and loss of biodiversity.

At American Rivers, we work with partners to put shovels in the ground, bringing to life landscape-scale projects in the Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, and along critical waterways that mitigate the far-reaching impacts of human activity and climate change while increasing access and appreciation of the rivers we love.  

Our methodology centers around the multi-benefit approach, where one powerful project can address multiple priorities. On a state and federal level, we advocate policies that help preserve and restore California’s rivers to build a more sustainable future. 

key issues

Dam Removal

The fastest way to bring a river back to life is by removing a dam. In California, we are building consensus among diverse stakeholders, negotiating with public regulators, and translating the complex into the comprehendible to develop and implement win-win solutions in the state water policy and project arena. In recent news, our dam removal work along the Klamath River in Northern California is expected to be the largest dam removal in the history of the United States. Learn more about our Dam Removal and Management work here and see how you can get involved!